SC school nurses group calls for Gov. McMaster to rethink K-12 reopening guidance
A group representing South Carolina’s school nurses is calling on Gov. Henry McMaster to rethink a directive he gave to schools that called for them to resume in-person classes five days per week.
The South Carolina Association of School Nurses sent a letter to McMaster on Wednesday saying that schools are ”not currently prepared to reopen during this pandemic” and that local school districts should be allowed to use existing guidance from state and federal agencies to guide their reopening plans. The letter was signed by the organization’s president, Charleen Hodges, and past president Dawn MacAdams.
“If students are not healthy, they cannot learn,” the letter said.
McMaster’s recommendation, given at a Wednesday press conference, called for S.C. public K-12 schools to resume in-person classes five days per week starting after Labor Day. McMaster stressed that parents should be able to decide whether to send their students to school in person or keep them home for online learning.
McMaster’s statement uprooted some school districts’ reopening plans and drew backlash from teachers groups and educators, who noted the governor’s guidance contradicted official recommendations from a state education task force and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
“Gov. McMaster wholeheartedly agrees that districts should develop their own re-opening plans, and he’s never said anything to suggest otherwise,” McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said in a statement when asked about the letter. “But he also believes that each of those plans should incorporate an option for parents to send their children to school for in-person instruction. And if parents prefer an at-home or virtual experience, they should be given that opportunity.
“But the bottom line is that the governor believes parents should be given that choice.”
The nurses association noted its concern for “the safety of our staff and students during this process. Many of our faculty and staff fall into the ‘high risk’ category per Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines,” according to the letter.
That assertion is backed up by a survey from teacher advocacy group SC for Ed, which found two in five South Carolina school teachers have an underlying health condition that could intensify a COVID 19 diagnosis.
The nurses’ letter also called for a “phased” resumption of in-person classes, social distancing, available personal protective equipment for all school nurses and more school nurses to meet an inevitable surge in demand.
Throughout the state, there are an estimated 166 schools that do not have a nurse, according to a report from AccelerateEd, the state task force on guiding school reopening.
“Given the ongoing risk posed by COVID 19, it is critically important for districts to seek to staff each school with a full-time equivalent nurse,” according to the task force report.
This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 3:47 PM with the headline "SC school nurses group calls for Gov. McMaster to rethink K-12 reopening guidance."